Me and what makes me tick

Main menu

Monthly Archives: March 2015

Today I simmered down some elderberries, ginger and cloves. Once it had simmered I turned the heat off and allowed them to cool down.

In the meantime, I had strained out the lung tincture. It is a simple combination of licorice, echinacea, elecampane, mullein, ginger and cinnamon. I had covered that with vodka and allowed it to steep for about 2 months. Once I strained it, I added honey to soften the harshness of the vodka and herbs.

My elderberry syrup had cooled down enough to strain and to that I added a couple of cups of local honey, mixed it really well and added it to the Lung tincture. I had about 6 cups of elderberry and 4 cups of tincture. Mixed together this way provides me with a well rounded herbal decoction which calms my dry cough and helps to nourish my damaged lungs.

Share this:

Well, I bought a whole flat of fat, juicy strawberries at FM on Thursday.

I cored them and chopped them up this morning, gathered my jars, sugar and sure-jell to make jam.

I love to watch the fruit do its full rolling boil thing. The aroma is heavenly and I know jam or jelly is in the making.

And here it is. 9 half pints of regular jam. Then I still had enough for another making so I added jalapeño to that batch for strawberry jam with a kick!!!
For the record–if this post appears weird or stupid it’s because I am testing out a new method of sending posts to my blog. Sent from my iPhone

Share this:

I have mullein growing in my yard–I found some way back in the ’80s and transplanted it to my yard. It is a 2 year plant–it grows the first year, sets seed the 2nd year, dies off but the scattered seed come up year after year.

img 10152

I like to gather this, dehydrate it and save it to use in teas, tinctures and salves.

img 1017

Mullein is good for all things lung related and will also help with pain. Making a tea from it requires a bit of washing and straining. The flavor is good, especially when sweetened with honey, but the fuzzy ‘taste’ one gets is a bit distracting.